This blog provides short, easy-to-digest summaries of recently published research relating to bullying, peer-aggression and peer-victimization. It is maintained by staff and students from the School of Psychological Sciences and Health at the University of Strathclyde.

There was an error in this gadget

January 30, 2014

Scholte, R. H. J., Burk, W. J., & Overbeek, G. (2013). Divergence in self- and peer-reported victimization and its association to concurrent and prospective adjustment. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42, 1789-1800.Two methods commonly used by researchers for measuring
bullying in schools are self-reports and peer-reports. Self-reports ask a child
a series of questions about their bullying experiences. Peer-reports instead ask
children nominate members of their peer group who they think are bullied. While
both measure are often used in research they are not often used together. The
information each measure generates can contradict the other, with each measure
often pointing to separate individuals as victims of bullying. Both measures
have benefits and drawbacks. Self-reports allow researchers a better insight
into bullying activities that may occur outside of school, and therefore are
not being measured by peer-reports, however they are also more sensitive to
lying, bias and misinformation. Peer-reports may give a more realistic and
objective account of bulling activities within school, however they are less
sensitive and may miss information that could identify a child as bullied.This study combined the strengths of peer- and
self-reports to generate more information on bullying victims. Using these
measures the authors wanted to see if they could find different kinds of
bullying victims, and how well these different victim types adapted emotionally
and socially during, and after, being bullied.A total of 1,346 adolescents from 23 different schools took
part in the experiment. Just over half were female and the majority were of
Dutch ethnicity. The average age was 14.2 years at the beginning of the year-long
study.Students were given questionnaires to measure self- and
peer-reports of victimization. A year later these measure were given to the
same participants again, this allowed the experimenters to see how the
participants were adapting to bullying after a period of time.Identification of victim TypesFour different types of victims were found by using self-
and peer-reports. Self-peer victims, identified by high scores on both self-
and peer-measures of bullying; self-identified victims, identified by high
self-report scores of victimization; peer-identified victims, characterized by
high scores on peer-measures; and non-victims, individuals who had low peer-
and self-report measures.Differences between victim types on present
future adjustmentSelf-peer victims were found to have the highest levels
of peer rejection and the highest amounts of loneliness. Peer-identified victims
had the highest levels of peer rejection, but also one of the highest levels of
self-esteem along with non-victims.Both self-victims and non-victims had more reciprocal
friendships compared with peer-victims and self-peer victims, and the quality of
these friendships did not make a difference in distinguishing the different
groups.Looking at these results it can be seen that those who
were identified by their peers as being bullied had more difficulty adapting socially,
where as victims identified by only themselves struggled to adapt during, and
after the bullying, emotionally. All four victim types were found to be stable
over a year, meaning if a participant was classified as a self-peer identified
victim they were likely to still be classified as a self-peer identified victim
a year later.Scholte and Burk’s research demonstrates how by combining
old knowledge, and creating newer measures, we are better able to form a deeper
and more detailed level of understanding what bullying is and how its use
affects others.